Comments

Comment by Bareno

Yay, finally some reliable burst damage for shadow priests!

Comment by Ixifer

It is true that Shadow Priests rely mostly on damage-over-time spells to maximize their dps during boss fights. But it is also true that DoTs are quite weak when it comes to burn down quickly adds or trashes, or generally against mobs with low hp. As Blizzard stated, in fact:

This is going to be Shadow Priests' "nuke" spell - ability they use on short PvE encounters, when fighting adds, and generally when the player cannot afford to keep DoTs up and sustain proper rotation. It will do Shadowfrost damage and will increase the damage of subsequent Mind Spikes. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting Mind Flay on a target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. Keep in mind, the idea behind it is that if you will Mind Spiking, you will be Mind Spiking a lot - the spell will only reach its optimal damage if it's spammed; you won't be able to fit it in your normal rotation. In addition, the fact that it belongs to two schools (Shadow and Frost) will make it harder to resist and impossible to interrupt-lockout.

It is clearly stated the function for which Mind Spike was designed; furthermore, I think that Mind Spike is quite useless in PvP, as its effect is unworthy if compared to Mind Blasts' healing reduction and Mind Flay's movement speed limitation

Comment by Zzeke

Kind of glad to see that this carries the risk of additional threat. It will add some more thought to a shadow priest's rotation decisions.

Comment by Stormwaker

For the Spriests (such as myself) that have been following this lil' spell since it was first announced, the changes to it thus far are very appealing. Originally, it was supposed to be spammed, as it would increase the damage over applications (like Arcane Blast) and wasn't really meant to be worked into any sort of rotation. Now it's part of that rotation, it the best possible way (though current rotation's will have to be altered to allow it, though the benefit from the increased dps is well worth a few minor tweaks). It has the set up with using it and putting the debuff on the opponent then executing it with a Mind Blast, sort of like using frost spells to freeze a target, then shattering them for Frost Mages.

Also, talents currently like Mind Melt will reduce the cast time of Mind Blast by 50% for 6 seconds when dealing damage with Mind Spike, even further increasing the damage per rotation and Shadow Power increasing its critical damage by an additional 40%.

It's looking to be a glorious return of the shadow priest (if only the graphic effect of shadow form received an update, that be the icing on this oh so delicious cake...).

Mind Spike also increases the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast on the target by 30%. Stacks up to 3 times.

Current State of Mind Spike with The Shattering, roughly a week before The Cataclysm where we'll be able to play with this on live. As promised, it's a mixture of shadow and frost, so if they lock you out of frost in pvp/pve, Mind Spike is still spammable. The downside, it removes your dots, so it's either spamming towards the end of your dot's tick so you can get three stacks of extra critical chance for Mind Blast.

With the changes to Shadow Orbs, it still eats a charge when you cast it, causing (now) dots to do an additional 10% damage, also increasing the damage to Mind Blast or Mind Spike. This just seems counter intuitive, Mind Spike removes dots, and it you have three stacked Shadow Orbs, it'll do extra damage but give you a pointless buff. I'd rather the Shadow Orbs buff eaten when you cast Mind Spike, rather have it for Mind Blast so that towards the end of your dot's last tick, you spam Mind Spike, wait till three stacks (and three Shadow Orbs stacked), then cast Mind Blast for serious damage, and re-cast dots quickly to benefit from the buff. I know Blizzard's trying to make Shadow's Mastery beneficial to the core of the specialization, but it seems they're doing it wrong and it looks more like Mind Spike will see much less use in any rotation, which is sort of sad.

Perhaps instead of exstinguish, have it finish off the dots but do half the damage of the total remaining damage to the target or have it when Mind Spike eats the Shadow orbs to increase something else.

Comment by joshiki

is there an actual graphic for this firing, or is it yet another "omg its already hitting you" spell with no travel time between you and the enemy? if there is a graphic, PLEASE, someone submit a screenie

Comment by MrFreeze059

Shadowfrost? Interesting...*strokes beard in delight*

Comment by Kiriela

Question - What is the buff timer on that buff? It can take a long time to get to 3 orbs for a mindblast. It simply says, "next mindblast." I hope there is no time limit on that - seeing as how our orbs have a one minute time limit. Anyone know how long you have to activate mindblast after spamming this to 3 stacks?

Comment by Froswaldthegreat

I wonder if itll stay as it is in release, since with heroic gear on the beta, archangel buffs and 3 shadow orbs I got a 38k crit on a mob. Seems a tad high, but then again this is the class's nuke.

Comment by redsunrising15

like others have said, the simple fact that casting this clears your dots will make this not viable in extended fights, plus archangel, etc.

Mindspike will be the ability that you use to nuke mobs that won't live long enough to take significant damage from your dots.

On boss fights and large-health-pool mobs you probably won't be using this.

Comment by romanticide

They shouldn't have added this anti-DOT system to Mind Spike, since it would be an usefull spell in our rotation.

For what I've seen on beta videos, while in a boss fight and Mind Blast is on CD, the number of Shadows Orbs you can proc is further more than 3 :(

And the Mind Melt buff would be usefull in those moving moments, and I'm quite sure that an instant Mind Blast would be affected by Inner Will.

Comment by Marref

They do now.

Comment by jrch5618

Interesting - the more Spikes on a target, the quicker Mind Blast goes

Get all 3 Spikes on a target, and Blast is instant cast.

Comment by digitalvictim

The shadow talent 'Mind Melt' reduces cast time of Mind Blast by 50% for each Mind Spike spell casted, making your next Mind Blast instant after 2 stacks of Mind Spike. It's still worth it to stack 3 because of the 90% crit chance.

Comment by Kazeijin

Whether it is intended or not, currently the stacks of spike on a target do affect your cast time for mind blast.

Comment by Marufrozen

Currently, when you get kicked while using this, you get locked out of your shadow spells and if you get kicked while casting mind flay or any other shadow spell, you get locked out from using this.

Anyone know if this is a bug or inteded? This is really frustrating me because I just got spell locked for I think 7 seconds. I'm not sure. Also, I don't think that this is doing 'shadowfrost' damage. It's just straight up shadow. Not to sound stupid if it is just supposed to do shadow, but then it should just straight up say shadow.

Comment by Marufrozen

Apparently my comment got removed...I just posted it wtf...

In case I'm just delusional, it said that at the current moment, getting interupted while casting mind spike causes all your shadow spells to go on cd and getting kicked while casting mind flay causes your mind spike to go on cd too.

Is it a bug or intended?

Comment by raca08

A great use I've found for this is in PVP as a counter to mage armor. They fixed the bug which let you get full duration dots on mages with mage armor on, so dots die almost immediately now. Spamming mind spike on them is just more efficient then trying to dot them at this point.

Of course it's also pretty nice when someone is half health and you can just burn them down with a couple mind spikes rather than blowing 1/4 of your mana dotting them up.

Comment by ChronoTool

Does anyone know if this just removes the dots, or does it dispell them from the target? I'm trying to figure out wether this will trigger Sin and Punishment.

Comment by vcreation

besides that if ur shadow tree got lockdown (which usually only happen in PVP) this spell is mainly used for burst damage dps.

as in PVE, in the past shadow priest only rely on DoTs to damage enemy besides the mind blast and SW:D, but with those 2 spells still not enough to pull out enough burst dps.in dungeon/raids this spell is very useful for killing low HP adds that boss spawn, u wouldn't want to really use it on boss. it's just that if a low HP adds spawn at boss fight that has to be burn down really fast, wasting tons of mana to dot it up, those dots would tick for 1-2 times and they are dead, this way u did almost no dps.

during a boss fight, i don't really include mind blast into my rotation, usually just refresh dots and SW:D whenever i can for mana regen, and Mind blast is just once in a while or when i have at least 2 shadow orb up(but usually i'll have 2-3 orbs up when mind blast cooldown is ready), or else i'll jsut mind flay, and move when refreshing DP, or casting SW:D for more SHadowy Apparition.

now when an add spawn, it don't really matter how many orbs i have at that time, casting mind spike on the adds 1-3 times (depends on it's HP) and then an almost-instant cast mind blast that's good dps.. SW:D is good but it would be better if u can cast it on mobs below 25% but not kill it so u get the mana regen.

so after all, this spell is what bliz give S:Priest the fast casting burst dps spell, specially for low HP mobs that u wanna burn down fast instead of dotting it up

Comment by Avengelyne

Not that i mind but the Instant cast Mind Blast after 3 Mind Spike's was a suprise to me :P

Comment by Toragen

This spell functions exactly the same as Frostfire Bolt does. Except that there still are a few bugs.

Comment by beingi

now when an add spawn, it don't really matter how many orbs i have at that time, casting mind spike on the adds 1-3 times (depends on it's HP) and then an almost-instant cast mind blast that's good dps.. SW:D is good but it would be better if u can cast it on mobs below 25% but not kill it so u get the mana regen.

The major Glyph of Spirit Tap will grant you plenty of mana regen (12% over 12 seconds) if you happen to kill with SW:D and with the prime Glyph of Shadow Word: Death you can increase your odds of getting that killing blow. If first cast fails you indeed get the masochism mana regen of 10%.

Comment by bmtphoenix

Overall, I like it, but it has made questing at 83+ a matter of casting Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Blast, repeat. Sort of boring, but I see no point in doing anything else, unless it's one of the very rare longer fights.

Comment by littlegreenwoman

Weird thing happened today. I was in a dungeon with another shadow priest and we both used mind spike as a starter. Spells from both of us stacked up as one debuff, i.e. 2 of my mind spikes and 1 of hers gave the mob 3 stacks and then one of us could cast the improved mind blast. My mind spike would also cancel her dots and vice versa. Is that intended? o_O How does that work in a 25-man raid situation?

Comment by littlegreenwoman

Weird thing happened today. I was in a dungeon with another shadow priest and we both used mind spike as a starter. Spells from both of us stacked up as one debuff, i.e. 2 of my mind spikes and 1 of hers gave the mob 3 stacks and then one of us could cast the improved mind blast. My mind spike would also cancel her dots and vice versa. Is that intended? o_O How does that work in a 25-man raid situation?

Update: I noticed that I probably should write an update. Of course this problem has been fixed and this is no longer a problem. Thank you, Blizz!

Comment by wingsofscion

So far, the Mind Spike debuff is not exclusive to each priest (shadow or not). Additionally, any priest that DOES cast Mind Blast will consume all stacks of the Mind Spike debuff, regardless of who it came from - which is equally annoying.

Comment by lolzatyou

So would i just spam this spell during the execute phase?

Comment by nilltre

For people like me using power aura style addons the debuff which stacks to 3 has spellid 87178 ()

Comment by seitori

Yep. Note that this makes mastery completely worthless on any fight you use the rotation on while leveling, except on the rare occasions you get crit and can consume a Shadow Orb.

Comment by untossable

I don't know whether it's just a display bug or a real bug, but currently the buff does not seem to stack up to 3 (90% crit on next Mind Blast). It stays at 2 stacks (60%).

Comment by Katalo

So does this mean that Mind Spike gets double the spelldamage boost from the enchant Soulfrost?

Comment by dgrstl

Mind Blast is actually instant after only two Mind Spikes since Mind Melt reduces its cast time by 50% per stack.

Comment by Greenlander

Used it on the ghouls at Echo of Sylvanas and ended up with a 59k crit without Cd's as healer :O OP much?

Comment by dannu2008

this skill is over^&*!ing power, this sheet must be nerfed!

Comment by dannu2008

priest and blood dk get crit when in the game ther should be no critical strike abilitys and talents...

Comment by Torgeytits

Athough not intended for such, it's worth noting that this is very handy in 80-84 PvP bracket.

Comment by taohinton

Changes with Mists of Pandaria (5.0.4)

Now a Shadow-only ability

No longer grants increased crit chance for Mind Blast

May deal slightly more or slightly less DPS than Mind Flay, depending on Mastery

Mind Spike is an alternative to Mind Flay, dealing spammable damage but removing all DoTs from the target in the process. As such it is generally only useful when nuking targets (no time for DoTs).

One specific use of Mind Spike is with the talent Surge of Light, which grants free, instant, 150% damage Mind Spikes that do not remove the target's DoTs - these procs far exceed Mind Flay's damage and should not be wasted.

Glyph of Mind Spike allows Mind Spike to reduce the cast time of your next Mind Blast by 50% (stacking up to 2 times), but note that this does not work with Surge of Light procs.

In terms of base damage, Mind Spike deals around 20% more than Mind Flay. However, with MoP, the Shadow Mastery Mastery: Madness acts to add extra ticks to Mind Flay, directly increasing its damage (but not Mind Spike's). With more than 20% mastery, Mind Flay therefore deals more damage than Mind Spike. Considering Mind Spike's anti-DoT effect and Mind Flay's useful snare, the only situation I can therefore see Mind Spike being useful for (besides From Darkness Comes Light procs) is nuking totems, and when Shadow is locked, due to Mind Spike's Shadowfrost school.

For the time being, this seems to spell the demise of Mind Spike for burst damage.

Comment by dawg

In some cases, you proc Mind Spike so often that you can spam the button. The macro below will prevent Mind Spike to be cast as a casting time spell, and will cast it if it has been proc'd of Surge of Light as an instant spell. (and will only work IF you've got Surge of Light as talent in tier 3 of the priest talenttree./cast Mind Spike /stopcasting

Comment by Meatramen

I have picked a good mix between Mastery/Crit/Multistrike. Pure singletarget, has worked fine in PvP and I do a sustained 21k dps on bosses. AoE is a real lackluster but that is what you bring other classes for.